


Perception

by smartgirlsaremean



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy's POV all the way through, F/M, I made up lots of Santiago brother names, Pre-Relationship, Pre-show, because we don't know everything, more characters to appear, more relationships too probably, probably slightly au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-08 02:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17972771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartgirlsaremean/pseuds/smartgirlsaremean
Summary: Throughout the years, Amy Santiago has had to revise her opinion of her partner a LOT.





	1. Annoying

When Amy Santiago was six years old, eight-year-old Manny discovered that if he repeated everything she said in a squeaky voice, he could make her turn a fun shade of red. If he did it long enough, she would yell and stomp her feet, and sometimes cry (at which point his mother would scold him and tell him to leave his sister alone). He found this absolutely hilarious, and it was his favorite form of entertainment for a solid year.

When she was eleven and just entering middle school, fifteen-year-old Sebi started narrating her like she was a nature program. “And here we see a wild Amy in its natural habitat, completely surrounded by books and refusing to interact with others of its kind.” “The Amy grows territorial when it is hungry, and will attack any perceived competition at the watering hole.” Her other brothers would encourage him in bad Australian accents, and Amy would fume in silence. (Most of the time. Sometimes she would snap and twist Sebi’s ear until he cried uncle. She might be the youngest and the only girl, but she knew each of their weak spots.)

When she was sixteen, all of her brothers made a big show of gathering her most embarrassing baby pictures and putting them in a single album they called  _ The Boyfriend Book _ , and they insisted that this album would be shown to every single one of her future dates. (Amy didn’t date much in high school, though. Well. At all, really. Certainly she never brought anyone to the house. Joke’s on them. Sort of.)

To say that Amy Santiago is used to being annoyed is a huge understatement.

When she is twenty-five and transfers to Brooklyn’s 99th precinct, she discovers that there is a whole new level of annoying awaiting her there.

Jake Peralta is friendly enough, at least at first, but he’s also loud, messy, overbearing, and the most   
__  
incredibly  
  
immature person she’s ever met. Right at this moment, for example, he’s doing the Running Man in the middle of the bullpen to celebrate the confession he just extracted from his latest arrest.

“That’s right, bad guys!” he cheers. “No rest for the wicked when Jake Peralta is on the case!” Then he stops and doubles over, hands on his knees, taking deep gulping breaths. “Whoa, okay, dancing and yelling, lungs no likey.”

“The diet of gummy bears and orange soda probably doesn’t help,” Amy points out, and he grins at her.

“I’ll have you know that I ate a whole tortilla for breakfast this morning!”

Despite herself, she’s impressed. “You made yourself...what, a breakfast burrito?”

“Huh? No, I mean...a tortilla. Y’know, just…” and he makes a gesture that Amy thinks is supposed to indicate a plain flat tortilla.

How this man is even alive is a complete mystery to Amy.

He finally sits down at his desk and looks at his computer. “Okay, report time,” he says under his breath. “Time for type-y hands to tip tap away.”

But he doesn’t. First he flips through his case file a few times. Then he picks up a pencil and wiggles it in front of his face to make it look like it’s made of rubber. Next he finds a pen and clicks it in and out a few thousand times, and then he’s spinning in his chair, and finally he decides that it’s time to type.

Two fingers at a time.

Just...pecking at the keyboard with his index fingers. One agonizing letter at a time.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

…

Tap.

…

Tap.

…

…

Tap.

…

…

Tap.

…

…

…

Tap.

…

…

…

…

…

…

Tap.

“Oh my god!” Amy exclaims, and Peralta starts. “Will you please just type your report like a normal person!”

She immediately regrets saying anything, because an all-too-familiar grin spreads across his face. “Why?” he says innocently. “Does.” Tap. “This.” Tap. “Bug.” Tap. “You?” Tap.

Amy puts on her most intimidating face and leans across her desk. “If you do not start typing properly you will regret it.”

His grin widens. “Oh yeah?”

Smirking, Amy sits back in her chair. “Yeah.”

“You don’t scare me,” he says. “I’m way too much of a badass cop, plus I’ve been here longer. I’ve  _ seen things _ .”

“And  _ I _ have seven older brothers,” she says.

Something flickers on his face.  _ Aha _ .

“But sure,” she says breezily, “keep annoying me. Remind me to tell you about the time my brother Matt took a shower and came out bald. It was  _ probably _ a complete coincidence that he’d hidden my favorite book that morning.” She keeps her eyes trained on her computer and refuses to look up to observe the effect of her words.

There’s silence across the desk for a minute or two, and then the quick, steady typing of a man who has chosen his battles wisely.

Amy almost smiles, but really she’s frustrated. She never thought she’d have to deal with someone so  _ annoying _ in a police department!


	2. Challenging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Working with Jake Peralta will never be boring, that's for sure.

“Peralta! This report has so many typos it looks like a cat walked on the keyboard. Fix it!” Sergeant Jeffords stalks over to the detective’s desk and slaps a file down on the already impressive stack.

“Watch it!” Peralta yelps, and sure enough, the entire thing topples over like Jenga blocks. “Uuuhhh, good one, Sarge,” he says. “Now I’ll never get it reorganized!”

“Reorganized?” Jeffords snaps. “It wasn’t organized in the first place!”

“Sure it was. I have a highly specialized system based on file thickness and coolness of the perp’s name.” Peralta snatches a folder off the floor. “Dave Smith, here, would usually go on the bottom except for the fact that he’s killed four people. He’d be at the top if his name was, like, Don Savage.”

“Get this cleaned up,” the sergeant says, “and do your paperwork  _ right _ . Arrests don’t matter if we can’t make the cases stick.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peralta mutters, distracted by a smear of jelly on one of his papers.

Watching him pick up and stack the files is making Amy incredibly anxious. He really doesn’t have any kind of filing system at all, and he’s singing to himself the whole time.

“Ooohhhh, oh Grace Tiiillllinghoouuussse, why you gotta be so baaaad? Stealin’ all those porcelain dooollllsss was really, really saaaaaaad…”

“Hey, Peralta,” Amy says without really thinking (besides the repetition in her head of  _ Please God make it stop _ ). He looks up, eyebrows raised. “Do you want some help? I’ve finished my paperwork already.”

“Yeah? Sure, if you want.” She moves to his side of the desk and picks up a file. “So what’d your perp do?” he asks.

“Simple B&E.”

“Mine too. It’s been slow recently. Not even a single murder all month.”

She narrows her eyes. “Well, that’s  _ good _ . It’s not like we  _ want _ people to die just so we can investigate.”

He holds up a file. “Yeah, yeah, but these cases have just been dumb. This dude here? He  _ called the bank in advance _ to let them know he was on his way to rob them. We literally just set up a perimeter and waited for him to show. He still had the call logged on his phone!”

Amy snorts. “I’ve got one better. I had a guy rob a string of vending machines and then try to pay his parking tickets entirely in quarters.”

Peralta shakes his head and picks up another file. “This guy? Really thought that sitting on a bench and picking up a newspaper would throw us off the scent - we were literally right across the street.”

“Well,  _ I _ had a guy in for public intoxication try to bribe me with a beer.”

Peralta’s eyes narrow and he holds up a third file. “Lamest case wins?”

Amy smiles into her file. “What are the terms?”

“If I win,” Peralta says slowly, “you have to...wear a sweatshirt to work for the rest of the week.”

Amy grimaces. She hates looking unprofessional. “And if I win,” she says, “you aren’t allowed to sing in the bullpen for the rest of the week.”

“Deal,” he says. They shake on it and go back to sorting his files with renewed gusto.

They’re rapidly opening and closing files, skimming through the details, and then carefully stacking them according to Peralta’s system (which still doesn’t make any sense at all but Amy would want him to respect her system so here they are). They keep one-upping each other’s lame cases,and Amy starts to think that maybe he’s right - maybe they really do need an attempted murder or something so they don’t all go insane.

They’re nearly done when Amy picks up the file that wins her the bet. “Listen up, Peralta,” she says. “You arrested this guy for bank robbery, and he wrote the ‘Give me your money’ note  _ on his own pay stub _ .”

“Oh, wow,” Peralta says, taking the file from her.

“That’s not the best part. He’d cashed his check the day before at the  _ same teller window _ .” She closes the file with a snap. “Do you have something better?”

“Uh…” Peralta looks at the two files in his hands and sighs. “Nope. That’s the winner, I think.”

“So no singing for you for the rest of the week, right?”

“Mmmhmm,” he says distractedly. He places the files on the piles on his desk and straightens. “I don’t know about you, but I need a coffee. Thanks for the help.” 

He strolls in the direction of the break room and Amy smiles to herself. A whole week of no singing from Peralta! She settles herself back at her desk and has just opened a new case file when she hears it.

“ _ You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess, it’s a love sto-ry, baby, just say-yay yes! _ ”

“Peralta!” Furiously she turns to glare at him where he stands in the doorway of the break room. “We had a deal!”

He grins and raises his coffee mug in a toast. “You said no singing in the bullpen. You didn’t say anything about the rest of the precinct!” He takes a sip of his coffee and turns away, still singing that stupid Taylor Swift song at the top of his lungs.

Okay, so...he has her there. She’ll just have to be more careful choosing her words from now on.

The next bet they make involves the case they’re working and where the suspect is hiding in a giant warehouse. She wins that one. Then they make a bet about their firearm qualifications and who will get the highest score. He does, but only just. The bets become a part of their dynamic, and Amy loves them. She’s always been competitive, and he’s the first man she’s met who not only  _ doesn’t _ resent her for her brains and her ambition, but  _ appreciates  _ her for them and meets her on the field as an equal. Peralta may annoy her, but he also challenges her, and she thinks it’s what makes their partnership work.


	3. Cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy's sister-in-law forces an epiphany.

“Amy! It’s so great to see you!” Lindsey squeals as she crushes Amy in a hug. “Oh...could your boyfriend not come?”

“My boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend.” Amy steps back and gives her sister-in-law a slight frown.

“But your mother has a picture...he isn’t your boyfriend?”

Amy follows her into the living room. “What are you talking about?”

When Lindsey points to a small frame on the wall, Amy sees that it’s a print of a selfie Amy had sent her mother when she made an arrest on her most difficult case to date. Behind her, Peralta is photobombing her, both thumbs up and his smile wide.

“Oh, God,” Amy says with a groan. “That’s not my boyfriend, he’s my partner. My  _ police _ partner.”

“He’s cute,” Lindsey says.

Cute?  _ Peralta? _ Before she can sputter a response, Amy’s mother calls her into the kitchen and she has to scurry off to help with dinner. (Well, help put things on plates. No one trusts her to cook.) But her brain doesn’t stop mulling over Lindsey’s bizarre statement.

Jake Peralta... _ cute? _

Well. Okay. He does have thick wavy dark hair and dark eyes and a square jaw and dimpled chin that are probably considered conventionally attractive, but the rest of his face is…

It’s  _ Peralta _ .

His nose is too prominent. No, not  _ too _ prominent. It adds character to his face and gives him a distinguished profile. It’s a nice nose, really.

And his mouth is too wide - except for when he smiles, because then that wideness works in his favor and his smile becomes brilliant and infectious. And his lips are…

No. She is  _ not _ going to start thinking about Peralta’s lips right now.

She decides that Lindsey isn’t totally crazy for thinking Peralta is cute, because objectively he  _ is _ . But there are more important things than a person’s looks. Behavior, for instance. And Jake’s behavior is obnoxious.

Immature.

Occasionally amusing.

Hilarious, now and then.

Okay, fine. She doesn’t actually mind his behavior all that much anymore. He’s immature and annoying, but he’s not mean. He doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body, and on the rare occasion she’s seen him take things too far he immediately apologizes. Some of the stupid things he does are actually pretty sweet when you really stop to think about them.

Like the picture in her mom’s living room. Sure, he’s photobombing her, but she remembers how genuinely thrilled he was for her that day. He even came up with a song - something about Santiago and her super suits sendin’ slingers to the slammer. (Peralta loves alliteration, even if he doesn’t know what the word means.) She knows the thumbs-up and smile aren’t saying “LOL ruining Santiago’s big moment” as much as “super stoked about Santiago’s big moment!”

When they’re all gathered in the living room after dinner, her eyes land on that silly picture again and, for no real reason, she feels her face grow warm.

Okay, so...her partner is cute.

Really cute.

No big deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my Index of Imaginary Santiagos (IIS), Lindsey is married to Manny, Amy's second brother. In case you care about that kind of thing.


	4. Incredibly Pushy (But Also Strangely...Sweet?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy's not entirely sure what to think about this.

Amy has just settled in with her favorite pen for an evening of paperwork when her phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Where  _ are _ you, chica?”

“Julia? What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Did you seriously forget?”

Amy frowns at her keyboard. “I...I must have?”

“You’re supposed to be at Lotus.” Amy slumps back in her seat. “Me...your brother...wedding...bridesmaid dresses...is any of this ringing a bell?”

“Oh, God, Julia, I’m sorry,” Amy sighs. “I made an arrest in this intense drug case and I’m just about to start the paperwork - it’s going to take me hours.”

“But...you can do it later, right?” Julia wheedles. “For your favorite future sister-in-law?”

“You’re my  _ only _ future sister-in-law.”

“Which is why you can’t stand me up! Besides, you don’t want to end up in something you hate, do you?”

“I’m not that picky. I can wear whatever Liz and Alex choose.”

“You’re really not coming?” All the playfulness leaves Julia’s tone and she sounds wistful and hurt.

“I just don’t know how I  _ can _ .”

Suddenly Amy’s phone is plucked out of her hands, and she leaps to her feet, her mouth opening in outrage. Peralta puts the phone to his ear and winks at her.

“Hey, Julia, right? Jake, Jake Peralta. Look, don’t worry about Amy. She’ll be there.” He ends the call and hands Amy her phone, smiling at her as if she’s supposed to be happy about this.

“Peralta, I have work to do! I can’t just…”

“Bridesmaid dresses, right? Just go, Santiago. The paperwork can wait.”

“No, it can’t,” Amy snaps. “ _ You _ might not mind getting weeks behind in paperwork and screwing up your cases, but  _ I _ have priorities!”

“Uh-huh. Where does family fit in?”

For a moment she falters. “I've been on the force for years,” she says a little uncertainly. “Sebi’ll understand.”

“Yeah, but Julia might not. I don’t have any sisters, but if I stood Gina up for something like this she’d kill me and then use my head as a punch bowl.”

She’s actually considering leaving her paperwork and going on this stupid shopping trip. She can’t believe it.

“No, I…”

“Look,  _ I’ll _ do your paperwork if it’s that important to you.”

Amy blinks and looks up at him. “You’ll...what? You don’t even do your own paperwork. Besides, it’s my case, you don’t...”

He picks up the folder lying on her desk and flips through it. “I’ve seen your notes, you’ve got the whole case written down here. All I have to do is copy stuff into the right spaces.”

“No,” Amy says almost firmly, reaching out to take the file from him. “I’ve seen your reports, they’re riddled with grammar errors and missing punctuation…”

He refuses to relinquish the file. “I’ll get Charles to look it over when he gets back. Go pick out an ugly dress and make your future sister-in-law feel important.”

She hangs on for a few seconds, searching his face with narrowed eyes. There’s a catch, here, right? There’s always a catch. People - guys like Peralta, especially - don’t just  _ do _ things like this for other people. She tugs again on the folder and he raises his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth quirking up, and try as she might she can’t sense any insincerity. At least for the moment, he really is offering to do her paperwork for...no real reason.

“Okay.” Amy lets go, and Peralta grins at her. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

She picks up her bag. “Please don’t spill orange soda on it.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“Have Charles  _ and _ Terry look it over. And maybe Rosa.”

“Sure thing.”

“And make sure you…”

“What’s that noise, can’t be Santiago, she left to try on ugly dresses, lalalalaaaaa…” And he actually plugs his ears with his fingers and backs away from her toward his own desk.

Amy rolls her eyes and heads for the elevator, still ever-so-slightly concerned that she’s missing something. She manages to focus on Julia and the shopping, and how happy Julia seems to have her there, and they pick out bridesmaid dresses that are actually fairly flattering, but the whole time there’s a nugget of worry in Amy’s brain. What did he do to her report? What will he ask for in return?

The next day when she walks in, she finds the report typed and neatly bound on her desk. Flipping quickly through it, she sees that it is, indeed, complete and ready to be submitted. Not a single error that she can spot in a cursory glance, either.

When Peralta wanders in around 9:30, he gives her a small wave and then, without saying a word, goes about his morning. He asks how she is, but that’s it. They sit through the morning briefing and he’s his usual irreverent self, and he makes a few “title of your sex tape” jokes, but he’s mostly focused on his case and doesn’t really speak much to her.

At the end of the day she finally corners him.

“Thanks for finishing my report,” she says, perhaps a little more sternly than necessary.

“Uh...you’re welcome?”

“So...what do you want?”

He looks confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you must have something in mind. What do I owe you?”

He frowns a little. “You don’t owe me anything. It was one report, no big deal.”

“But…”

“Seriously, Santiago. We’re partners. We have each other’s backs.”

She blinks at that. “You...have my back?”

“Of course I do.”

They’re silent for a little while, Amy taking a moment to adjust to this new reality: one in which her partner respects and supports her and trusts her to do the same for him, and in which recognition and praise for basic decency aren’t expected or demanded. He shifts his weight, looking a little uncomfortable under her scrutiny, and finally she steps back and gives him a small smile.

“Me too.”

“You have your back? How does that work?”

Great. She sighs and rolls her eyes, turning away.

“Hey, wait, I wanna figure this out. Can you turn your head all the way around like an owl? Or do you have, like, eyes in the back of your head?” He lowers his voice. “ _Are you_ _Eye Guy_?”

She leaves the precinct that day with the  _ Power Rangers _ theme song stuck in her head, but she also has a strange warm glow in her chest that won’t go away.


	5. Handsome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There must have been a "first time" that Amy saw Jake in his court clothes. How did she respond?

“ _ Bleeaarrggghhhh _ !”

At least, Amy thinks that’s how you’d spell the sounds coming out of Peralta’s mouth the second the elevator door opens. She’s digging through her desk drawer for a box of staples, so she doesn’t see him right away, but there’s something odd about his footsteps. They sound sharper somehow. She glances across and then freezes, because she knows Peralta, and he always wears sneakers.  _ Always _ . So who is sitting at his desk wearing a pair of shiny black leather loafers?

She sits up and gets a decent look at her partner and she feels her face heat up.

Because  _ ooohhhh, mama _ .

His shirt is a beautiful eggshell blue that does amazing things for his skin tone, and it’s paired with a slate gray suit and darker gray knit necktie, and he’s actually brushed his hair for once, and…

“Lookin’ good, Jakey!” Charles Boyle calls from his desk, and Peralta glares at him. (Amy presses her lips together because that stern look on his face is suddenly  _ doing things _ to her.)

“I do not look good. I look  _ stupid _ . I look like someone’s  _ accountant _ .” He fiddles with the buttons on his jacket sleeve. “Stupid court clothes.”

He doesn’t look like someone’s accountant. He looks like an honest-to-god  _ hunk _ , and while Amy acknowledged a long time ago that he’s an objectively good-looking man, she doesn’t think she ever realized he was  _ quite _ this handsome.

“You finally went to that tailor I told you about?” Terry asks from his desk.

Peralta sighs. “No pizza for a  _ month _ . It better be worth it.”

“It will be. You look like you actually know what you’re talking about.” Terry eyes him critically. “But you should sit up straight or take the jacket off. You’re gonna wrinkle it.”

Grumbling under his breath, Peralta shrugs out of the jacket and goes to the break room to hang it up, and Amy most definitely does  _ not _ watch those perfectly tailored slacks as they walk across the bullpen. She  _ doesn’t _ .

When he comes back, she’s gotten herself under control. He looks more like himself without the jacket, and also he’s humming the  _ Ghostbusters _ theme so things feel a little more normal.

“Which case?” she asks.

“The Douglass burglaries. Why couldn’t the guy plead out? I wouldn’t’ve had to buy a stupid suit for his stupid court case if he’d just admit he did it.”

“It’s not stupid,” Amy says before she thinks, and hates herself the next second.

“Yeah, yeah, due process and justice and all that crap,” Peralta says. Amy breathes a sigh of relief - a bit too early. “Unless you’re talking about the suit, in which case, stop objectifying me, Santiago. I know I’m totally irresistible, but keep it together.”

She rolls her eyes and a few minutes later he leaves for court. He texts her a selfie taken outside the courthouse; he’s staring off into the distance, an exaggerated frown on his face, with the caption “Let Justice Be Served!” across the bottom, and she laughs.

But she doesn’t delete the photo.

She’s only human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a drabble than a full chapter, honestly. Oh well.
> 
> Andy/Jake in a suit? Mama like.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think?


End file.
